


So similar as to be the same

by andalucite



Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss, Second person POV, rape aftermath (no actual rape depicted), revenge and justice are two sides of one coin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-28 09:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13901385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andalucite/pseuds/andalucite
Summary: You are not sure where the line between justice and revenge is in this scenario, and even if you were, you aren't sure it would matterNot after what happened





	So similar as to be the same

**Author's Note:**

> A response piece to [this post](http://ladymdej.tumblr.com/post/157368585009/remember)
> 
> Not necessary reading to understand this fic, but very closely related

Everyone knew about the girl who had bargained away a year of her life for– well, something, no one seemed to know what. And she didn’t seem to have gained anything, for all that she had given away: no more beautiful, no more clever, no more talented, no more wealthy, no more anything than before.

Some of her friends (not friends at all) even whispered to each other that she seemed to be less, carelessly ignoring what they knew that she no longer did.

All in good fun, yes? After all, no one considers themselves so cruel.

But you– standing naked and still as ice in front of your bathroom mirror staring hard into your own eyes and specifically not anywhere else– oh, you thought you might have an inkling as to what kind of bargain might be made with the intention of losing something rather than gaining it.

—

A week later you receive a discreetly marked envelope that contains a clean bill of health. That is important. Even if the Gentry would take the memories in your body as well as your mind, there were likely others– that would need to know.

You tuck the letter into your journal, stripped of its defenses (iron and salt in the binding, witch hazel taped to the inside cover). It dated back, coincidentally, to a year from yesterday, almost-but-not-quite filled.

The girl who had bargained away a year of her life for seemingly nothing had a seemingly-other roommate with whom you now suspected she had made her deal. No one, least of all you, would dare take steps to prove the Otherness of a student beyond hunches and instinct, but you had good instincts when they weren’t dru– well. While you were yourself.

You had no Other roommate (she was a biochem major and pierced to the gills).

That was okay. You were not bargaining away a year for your own sake (not only your own sake).

You go to the Woods that night, utterly unprotected, journal tucked firmly under your arm. You go to the Woods, just deep enough to be dangerous, and stand staring hard into the darkness.

Rage and sickness twist in your stomach, shaking its way into your knees and aching in your hands.

You scream at the woods, voice-trained and tainted with the foulness that had made its home inside of you. The Gentry like those with music inside of them, and while you had no sweet song for them tonight, They had decidedly different ideas about what made good music.

“I come to bargain.” Fateful words. Foolish words. You are almost laughing, giddy with the power of doing something so stupid as to be forbidden for it, and are definitely crying. In the dark of the Woods, scream still echoing, you are feeling too much-

What dost thou wish? a not-voice asks, sibilant and smooth.

“Not with you. Send another.” You are not… quite rude, but almost.

There is a sense of hesitation, surprise; then a silence that is both considering and empty.

The Woods are watching you now, predatory and sharp.

Your teeth are bared. Not at Them. At hi– not at Them.

Another comes, smelling of forest rot and copper and feeling like missing a stair.

“I come to bargain with You.” You are not Sighted, but you have good instincts, and you are definitely looking at something that is not there. You wait a beat, but there is only a feeling like picking up a piece of fruit long turned on the tips of your fingers.

You breathe deep, damn the rot and damn the nausea that threaten. This is it.

“I come to bargain a year and a day of my memories, starting from the moment You fulfill this bargain and stretching back in time a year and a day.” The precise language feels repetitive to you, but precision is necessary.

“My memories during the specified time include both the best, highest moment of my life so far and the worst, lowest moment of my life so far.” You had thought carefully how to phrase your offer to make it most appealing, most worth-while, and settled on this.

“In exchange–” rage keeps your hesitation brief, for once you speak certain dark things inside of you become a reality and certain things are not likely to be considered human again– “I would have you destroy a certain person for me. I will give You their True Name at the moment You accept this bargain.”

You had not asked for a– for a rape test kit during your doctor’s appointment. You had not filed a police report. You had not told Elsewhere University security. No human officials knew how you had been wronged. You had looked around with changed eyes, with new knowledge, and seen the girl who traded a year of her life for nothing ducking out of commons in the exact manner you had, and realized with stunning clarity what she had done and what you would do.

Actions not yet taken and yet already done. Human, it was only middlingly difficult to find his True Name. Few people at Elsewhere University looked for danger from its human students. (You hadn’t.)

“And!” you added without thinking, without meaning to, “I want to watch.”

Justice and revenge can sometimes look so similar as to be the same.

You think of the other girl, protected by her Other roommate, who even at her traded-away worse was likely better than you, and find only grim anticipation.

The Thing in the Woods accepts. You have the feeling that They only agreed after you demanded to watch.

You take your journal from beneath your arm and remove your clean bill of health, all dangerous information (like Names) carefully excised. Scrawled over the single sheet of paper declaring nothing wrong with you at all in thick, blocky letters, is his True Name.

You do not hesitate as you hand it over into nonexistence.

“My journal, and my memories for one year and a day from the moment You complete our bargain back in time, after.”

The Woods blur.

You blur, a bit, and watch justice for the other girl and revenge for yourself carried out in exactly as inhumane a manner as you asked for.

You are on your knees in the bushes vomiting when the Gentry you sold yourself to takes your journal, takes your memories, takes and takes and takes–

—

Elsewhere University administration, when it becomes clear you do not remember anything, make you take the rest of the semester off for ‘health reasons’ and reapply as a freshman in the fall ‘if you still want to attend EU, a lot can change in five months’.

You stay for a week longer, sorting out unexpected travel expenses and your things from your roommate’s things because seriously you don’t recognize half the things she says are yours.

Every time you leave your room– mandatory official meetings with a school therapist and your class advisor, neither of whom you recognize, and recommended unofficial meetings with some of the… older? tenured? professors? who are really quite odd and much more helpful– and return, there are what you helplessly decide are gifts or- almost offerings waiting at the threshold.

A small rock. A box of chocolates. Your freshman lit writing portfolio (where did they even find that? Between your carelessness and your professors’ carelessness, most (all) of your classwork had been lost), rolled up in salt (weird). Flowers in all kinds of colours. A sketch of you looking small and lost on a napkin with the word ‘goals’ underneath it, unsigned. A comic book you’ve never heard of before featuring a superhero who might not be all that ‘super’ or a ‘hero’.

No one on your hall has any idea where the gifts/offerings are coming from, who is leaving them.

You pack them all in your carryon in a fit of– something. Some emotion, anyways, not one you can pin down.

A very sweet couple clutching hands offer you a ride to the airport to save on taxi fare.

‘Well,’ says one of them, smiling widely, ‘just me, actually, I’ll drive you– she has, she has too much homework. And I do still remember how to drive.’ The other laughs as if it is the funniest joke she has ever heard. You decide it is an odd commentary on EU’s students’ tendency not to leave during the semestre much and their weird, weird sense of humour.

—

You don’t, actually, end up returning to Elsewhere University in the fall.

It somehow seems too difficult and slightly wrong to repeat your missing year almost exactly as it probably went, to redo experiences you’ve already had even if you can’t remember them.

Can’t remember the new rules you learned to keep you safe, can’t remember the bargain you made to keep others safe but not yourself, can’t remember the man you may or may not have murdered, or why, can’t remember anything at all, but you generally trust yourself so even though Elsewhere University is– was?– exactly what you want, you don’t go back.

You do keep the gifts/offerings, though, the ones that will keep, in a box under your new dorm room bed.


End file.
